CSA » Life Lyn Style

A Non-Traditional Pampered Chef Party

Mar 182012

Today, Nick and I went to a Pampered Chef Party. I’m familiar with the products, but had never been to a party. This wasn’t a normal party. It was hosted by Trevor, who owns Fresh Fork Market CSA.

When we arrived, Nick was whisked away to the attic, where Trevor was excited to show him a train. Nick has a couple of small Lego type trains, but never had seen a real model train up close and personal. Needless to say, Nick was quite occupied with the train most of our visit.

Clark Pope is a Pampered Chef consultant, has a catering business and is a Fresh Fork Market CSA customer. He had an open house style party. He was cooking pizza in the kitchen and many Pampered Chef products were on display. It was a very low pressure sales event with the emphasis on food and fun. I had the pleasure of meeting Diane. She’s known to many as “the pie lady”. She runs the Humble Pie Baking Company. I had her apple pie at Thanksgiving and it was superb! I really enjoyed chatting with her about local ingredients and preserving.

Later, Trevor was busy cooking turkey burgers for us to sample. He’s working on some new products and wanted some input. I had a sweet Italian turkey sausage burger. It was extremely flavorful, but a bit spicy for my taste. A bit later, Nick and I had a bite of a sundried tomato turkey burger. Nick really liked it a lot. I thought it was good, but maybe a bit too salty. In all my weeks of picking up our CSA, I never took a photo of “Mr. Robert”. He was enjoying his time at the gathering.

I had a great time and even ordered a few items. Nick is already looking forward to his next visit. He made train sounds all the way home.

Fresh Fork Winter CSA–week 11

CSA No Responses »

Mar 152012

It’s hard to believe that it’s week 11 already. It’s also the middle of March. It won’t be long until we are picking strawberries! We arrived at Beachwood High School to find Trevor manning the truck this week. Also, due to baseball practice, the truck was in a different part of the parking lot. I had that strange feeling that I was there on the wrong day for just a second. Once we circled around the lot, Nick noticed the green bags and all was well.

Here’s what we were expecting to receive this week:

1 pack pork loin chops
1 bag corn crackers
2 lb. black turtle beans
1 pint salsa
1 bag mixed salad greens
1 pint sorghum syrup
1 dozen eggs
1 lb. assorted sausage
1 lb. sweet corn
1 lb. kale, bunched

Here’s a group shot:

We’ll use the beans in a combination of a Mexican casserole and also black bean burgers. The ground pork will also go in our casserole.

The pork chops are the best. We’ll probably just season them and bake them in the oven. The corn was frozen last summer and it’s been delicious. We’ll add it to our Mexican dish or use it as a side.

The sorghum syrup was a head scratcher last year. We ended up using it in a bbq glaze type of sauce that we put over ham loaf. It was delicious. I have no idea how we made the sauce, so we’ll be experimenting once again. I’m thinking of using it as the main sweetener in some homemade sauce. So far, tomato sauce, vinegar, spices, onion, peppers and syrup come to mind. I’m not a huge fan of this type of greens, but we do our best to eat it in salads.

I’ll be putting the kale and salsa in our casserole as well.

Everyone in our house loves these chips. If they don’t get eaten first, they’d be a nice addition to our Mexican meal. Eggs are so easy for us to use. I just saw a recipe for some muffin casserole bites that are egg based. I think I’ll try it this week.

We picked up a few extras as well. Krispie treat granola ($5) and 2 yogurts ($5 each).

I’m excited for this week because I can do just a little cooking and have several meals. Sometimes I like being a lazy cook.

Fresh Fork Winter CSA–week 10

CSA No Responses »

Mar 012012

Today was a crazy day. We ran errands before our trip the gym. Then, we had an indoor picnic before heading home. Sally napped for a short time. Nick napped for a short time after I decided that driving them around in the car was my best bet for some quiet time. Then, it was off to swimming. While Nick took his lesson, Sally and I swam. By the time we made it to pick up our CSA, I was pretty done. I was glad that they weren’t busy and we were able to do a rare drive thru pick up. Thanks to Eric and Robert for having bags all ready to go. It was great with the tired kids!

Here’s what we were expecting to receive this week:

1 pork roast
1 half pint raspberry jalapeno jam
1/2 lb. mixed salad greens
1 pt. pickled banana peppers, hot or medium
Frozen fruit (cantaloupe or watermelon, great for smoothies)
1 head cabbage
2 lbs. turnips
1 lb. cracked black pepper linguini
quarter peck Fuji apples

Here’s a group shot:

Apples are always welcome for snacking and oatmeal. I’ll probably do the roast in a crockpot recipe this week. I’m trying to use the crock pot more so we can enjoy dinner without last minute prep and cooking. It really helps with the dishes if we only have to do the ones we used to actually eat after dinner time.

I’m at a loss with the peppers. We don’t really eat much hot food. These are supposed to be mild so maybe they will appear in some fajitas or chili soon. I’m hoping the jam is more sweet than hot and that the jalapeno adds more flavor than bite. I’ll have to let you know.

The greens are pretty standard. They aren’t really my favorite this time of year. The frozen fruit will be lucky to be in our freezer by this time tomorrow. The kids are excited about smoothies.

The Fresh Fork CSA staff has been giving us lots of ideas for the turnips. I haven’t decided which recipe to go with, but I want to use them tomorrow or Saturday. I popped the pasta in the freezer. It will make a quick meal one day this week.

I’ve been making unstuffed cabbage with much of our cabbage this winter. It’s easy and I can make it in the crockpot. I suspect that will appear on our table this week.

Even with the drive thru pickup, we still had our $3.50 ready just in case Robert had some corn chips. Everyone was hungry after swimming and these kept everyone entertained for the drive home.

I really like the variety of staple and storage items that we get to try out during the winter CSA, but I’m glad it’s March. I hope the spring weather treats the farmers well. I’m really getting in the mood for summer fresh produce.

Fresh Fork Winter CSA–week 9

CSA No Responses »

Feb 162012

We had a productive day today. The kids and I went to story time at the library, cleaned two bathrooms, did the dishes, did 2 loads of laundry, went to the gas station, the post office and two stores. All of this occurred before lunch! After nap time, we took Nick to his swim lesson and then picked up our Fresh Fork CSA (where I put the cold items in a cooler with ice) before returning to the J so I could take a class. Whew! No wonder I’m tired.

Here’s what we were expecting to receive this week:

1 whole pasture raised chicken
1 pint frozen raspberries
1 quart farmstead yogurt
1 8-oz. piece gouda cheese
1 1lb bag of granola, either Krispy treat or spelt granola (vegan)
3 lbs. Yukon gold potatoes
1 bag mixed salad greens
1 quarter peck gold rush apples
1 package tofu

Here’s a group shot:

The chicken is in the freezer. I had just cooked our last chicken this week and we still have stock in the fridge. We’ll probably cook it soon since it takes up quite a bit of room. The greens look really good this week, so some more salad will be in the mix.

I am always glad to see yogurt. We’ve been buying this brand at Heinen’s whenever there isn’t any on the truck. I love that my kids eat plain yogurt with a bit of homemade honey sweetened jam. We’ll use the apples in our oatmeal for breakfasts. We were down to our last one today.

My kids were happily surprised to see “more raspberries”. We haven’t been getting them in our CSA, but we have been eating frozen ones from our summer picking for the past few days at home. They have been very popular, so I don’t expect these to last long. There was a problem with a truck this week, so we were given a choice of waiting until the next pick up for the Yukon gold potatoes or taking sweet potatoes. We love sweet potatoes and already had some white potatoes at home, so we opted for the sweet potatoes.

All of the local cheese we have received has been great. Gouda is one of our favorites. The tofu is a new product for the CSA. I’ve poled several people and everyone describes it differently. The best description that I have heard so far is that it’s really firm, but crumbly. I plan to freeze it and make tofu sausage crumble with it. I also heard that I need to freeze it for two weeks. So, that’s what I’m going to try.

The granola is one of my favorites. I bought an extra bag for $5 because it’s so good.

All in all, we have another great batch of local goods to work with. I’m going to do some meal planning in the next day or two so we can use our pantry staples and new products for some tasty dishes.

Geauga Family Farms CSA Winter Extras Pick Up

CSA No Responses »

Feb 122012

Geauga Family Farms CSA is offering an egg share for the next 4 months. Apparently, the hens that were raised in anticipation for the winter CSA are finally up to full production. So, they had an excess of eggs and wanted to do an egg share. We didn’t really need an egg share, but since there was a local (Cleveland Heights) delivery available, we ordered some extras. We picked up our goods yesterday in the midst of celebrating Nick’s birthday.

GFF was offering a $10 produce bag. I had no idea what we might get.

Here’s a photo of our bag contents:

Carrots, lettuce, parsley, cabbage, potatoes, and I believe collard greens. I have to say that I wasn’t overly impressed. The lettuce and cabbage were frozen. I cleaned the lettuce and put in in our greens container. I didn’t try it out yet. The outer couple of layers of cabbage were also frozen. I haven’t tried to cut into it yet. You can see the frozen green in the photo. The carrots were the best we’ve had, but it was only enough for each of us to have a couple of bites. Parsley is hard for us to use. We usually make tabouli, but we don’t have the other ingredients for it. I think I’m going to try to make chimmichurri sauce. I’m glad I tried the grab bag, but I’m not sure I’d order it again.

The honey and maple syrup were the main reasons for our order. I’ve become picky with my honey. I really like the wildflower honey from Schmidt Family Farms and the Miller’s Country Jam honey. The Miller’s Jam is available through GFF, so I ordered it. It was $5 a pound and we got 4 pounds. I also ordered a quart of maple syrup for $14. This is a good price for local maple syrup. I’m excited for new production in March, but we were running really low. I picked up a dozen eggs for good measure. They were $3.25.

I’m not sure we’ll place another extras order next month, but it’s a nice option for us during the winter. I’m excited for the summer produce season.

Fresh Fork Winter CSA–week 8

CSA No Responses »

Feb 022012

Today was our week 8 pick up for our Fresh Fork CSA. We got there about 5PM and didn’t have any wait at all. It’s nice when the kids can just run around for a minute or two.

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

1 stewing chicken, approximately 2.5 lbs.
1 bag dried egg noodles
1 pint fig vinegar roasted cherry tomatoes
1 lb. egg linguini
1 lb. bacon
1 bag spinach or mixed greens
1 8-oz. piece of cheese
1 dozen eggs
2 lbs. cornmeal
1 quarter peck apples
3 lbs. sweet potatoes (please keep refrigerated)

Here’s a group shot:

We were notified early today that there wasn’t going to be spinach. The yield wasn’t as the farmer had hoped.

I was glad to see apples today. We love having them in our oatmeal. I don’t think I’ve ever cooked a stewing chicken. From reading, it sounds like it will make great stock. I have some carrots and celery in the fridge to add to it. I’ll probably also add the noodles.

We had our choice of beer or cheddar cheese. I chose beer cheese since it sounded more fun.

Our kids call the Ohio City linguini “spider web pasta”. It’s always welcome in our house in any flavor. Maybe we’ll top it with the roasted cherry tomatoes for dinner one night.

I don’t feel like we use a ton of eggs in our house, but we always seem to use them up. Baked oatmeal, muffins, pancakes, and such all use an egg or two at a time and it adds ups. I’ve been leaving the bacon frozen and cutting it across the width for smaller pieces of bacon as flavoring in dishes. It works well since I don’t need to thaw all of it at once and it last longer for us.

I’m hoping to have the sweet potato / chorizo type of hash that Stephen made for us before using the potatoes. I think we have all of the ingredients in house. Our kids eat corn muffins like they are going out of style. I also want to try some pancakes made out of corn meal soon.

We also picked up a bag of corn chips ($3.5) from the back of the truck.

All in all, this is a pretty easy week. I’m glad to have a chance to use up more from our freezer stash. We have two small freezers in the basement and one needs to be defrosted soon. I’m hoping to tackle that in the next 2-3 weeks.

Fresh Fork Winter CSA–week 7

CSA No Responses »

Jan 192012

Today, since I was in Akron spending time with family, Stephen and the kids picked up our Fresh Fork CSA. Again, there wasn’t any rain, but there was lots of snow this week. It sounds like the pick up was smooth. Thanks to Stephen for taking the photos for this week.

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

1 slab Berkshire spare ribs, approx. 2.5 lbs.
1 pint homemade BBQ sauce
1 lb. stew beef
1 8-oz. portion mixed salad greens
3 lbs. roasting potatoes
2 lbs. organic spelt flour (substitute for your all purpose flour)
2 lbs. organic sweet corn, frozen
1 package Italian Sausage links, approx. 1.25 lbs.

Here’s a group shot:

We had some of this frozen corn at Thanksgiving time. It was so tasty. For now, this corn is in the freezer. We’ll eat the greens in the next couple of days. They look very fresh and tasty.

We put the ribs and sausage in the freezer also. With my grandpa’s funeral this week, we aren’t eating many meals at home.

Eventually, we’ll use the stew meat in some stew. The flour is easy to use in our everyday cooking.

This BBQ sauce was a hit this past summer. We didn’t get it in our share, so I’m glad we have the opportunity to try it. We were out of potatoes, so it will be easy to make a meal with this early next week.

Winter has arrived, so we have many shelf stable/freezer items this week. I’m glad that it will be easy to use everything without any waste. I plan to get back into the home eating cooking groove by Monday.

Fresh Fork Winter CSA–week 6

CSA No Responses »

Jan 052012

Today, there was no rain for our Fresh Fork CSA pick up. There was also no line at the time we arrived. This week’s package was also easier to pack than some and I think that helped. We’d rather have snow on the ground that rain coming down for our pick ups.

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

1 whole pasture raised chicken
1 lb. carrots
1 lb. Brussels sprouts (removed from stalk)
2 lb.s beets
1/2 lb. mixed organic greens
1 dozen pasture raised eggs
2 lbs. organic black turtle beans
1 smoked pork hock
1 lb. roasted butternut squash and cracked black pepper linguini

We were also expecting 1 pound of ground beef that was missed for everyone at Beachwood last time.

Here’s a group shot:

We didn’t have many eggs left and use quite a bit in everyday cooking. So, I was glad to have these in the bag this week. I also have some frozen egg beaters that I need to work into some recipes soon. Surprise, surprise, we’ll be making Harvard Beets with the beets this week.

I was originally going to make this pasta for dinner, but we had other pasta in the fridge and opted for a quicker dinner tonight. The Ohio City pasta cooks fast, but I usually make a white sauce to go with it and the leftovers were easy tonight. We’ll save that for another day this week. Everyone in our house loves cooked carrots. Now that Stephen can eat raw ones again (since getting his braces removed), we may have to discuss how to prepare them.

We’ll have the Brussels sprouts tomorrow. Last time, we let them go too long and I think they lost some of their flavor. The greens will hopefully go into salad. I’m not the biggest fan of this variety, but I need to get better of just eating them.

With pork hock and black beans in the same week, black bean soup is in order. I’ve been looking at recipes for a couple of days and haven’t quite decided on a version for us yet.

Our chicken is 7.8 pounds! That is definitely the biggest Fresh Fork chicken we have have gotten thus far. For now it’s parked in the freezer along with our ground beef.

Lastly, the warehouse did a “blow out” sale on the ham loaf. We remembered it fondly so I stocked up. It was $2 a pound. I like to describe it to people as ham based meatloaf mix. I will be making meatballs and muffin size meatloaves with some yet to be invented rhubarb honey BBQ sauce and then freezing them for meals. I’ll serve them with potatoes, different grains, pasta, etc. I like to bake them and freeze in big batches so we can get several meals out of them.

Lastly, this is the first time that I got to take photos of my CSA pick up with my new lights. I think that I have tons to learn, but it’s a huge improvement over the dark photos of recent weeks. I’m mostly intrigued by how different the wood table looks in the photos when I think I had the same lighting and camera settings for all of my photos. I think that the angle of the camera has a big impact. I think I’ll be learning how to use a tripod next. Hopefully, I’ll have a some time to experiment over the next couple of weeks.

New Lighting for Photos!

CSA, Food No Responses »

Dec 302011

For Christmas my in-laws bought me a set of umbrella lights for use in my blog photography. I haven’t been happy with many of my photos lately, especially with the CSA photos. The time change has a lot to do with that. You really want nice natural light for photos. The problem is that natural light isn’t always available, especially in Cleveland. When I couldn’t take photos until later in the evening, the pictures were terrible. It was still nice to document what we got in the CSAs, regardless of the photo quality.

A photo with the old set up would look something like this:

With the light stands, a photo looks like these. The difference between these is the setting on the cameras. I’m no expert, but I like the second one better since the table looks more natural. I’m pretty brain dead this late in the day, so Stephen was helping me. One afternoon this weekend when I am more alert, we can review the camera settings. Either way, it’s so much better than the above photo.

I just use a Canon point and shoot camera and this option for improving the photos in much less expensive than a digital SLR camera would be. As long as I figure out how to take manual photos with my point and shoot camera, I think I’ll be very happy with the photos this winter.

I’m not sure how easy the stands will be to take up and down, but I’m sure they will be used for every CSA pickup beginning this Thursday.

It’s such a fun Christmas gift. I’m sure we will get a lot of use out of them. Since Stephen has been taking photos of circuits for his blog, he’ll be using them too.

Now, I am even more excited for Thursday’s CSA pick up!

Fresh Fork Winter CSA–week 5

CSA 1 Response »

Dec 212011

Today, we had another soggy Fresh Fork CSA pick up. I think Trevor should invest in Gortex running gear for the crew, and maybe some sand bags for the tent. It was really a smooth pick up. The kids wanted to wait with me, so they ran around in the rain while I waited in line for our goodies.

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

1 tub (4 oz.) goat milk feta
8 oz. jar of brandied cherry preserves
8 oz. mixed baby greens
1 sleeve of leaf lettuce
1 head of cabbage
1 bag of Mrs. Miller’s dried egg noodles
1.25 lb.s Andouille
2 lbs. ground beef
8 oz. pak choi
2 lbs. onions
1 lb. Brussels sprouts
3 lbs. sweet potatoes
1 24 oz. loaf of apple pound bread

Here’s a group shot:

I don’t have any immediate plans for the sweet potatoes, but I’m glad that everyone in our house likes them. I’m thinking of using the ground beef in a crock pot unstuffed cabbage tomorrow. I only got one pack of beef and I’m checking on that.

I’ve never used Andouille sausage in anything before. For now, it’s in the freezer and I’ll think of something later. My husband just found a sweet potato and Andouille recipe that sounds promising. The goat cheese will disappear on crackers and toast. Cheese never lasts long in our house.

Greens disappear without much effort and these will be no exception. We need to keep our veggie intake up to balance the cookies this week.

I have all of the ingredients for French onion soup and will make it in the next day or two.

The Brussels sprouts and pak choi will make good sides this weekend.

Apple pound cake is a new one for us. I’m sure it will be eaten quickly once we taste it. The noodles will be in the cupboard for a few weeks since they aren’t perishable. We still have turkey in the freezer, so some soup may be in order.

We aren’t cooking a ham for Christmas, but I’m sure these preserves will be tasty no matter how we enjoy them. I’m considering making homemade jelly doughnuts for Christmas. Maybe they will have cherry filling.

I also splurged on extras this week. We were out of eggs and still wanting to do some baking this week. The breakfast patties were so good when we had them before, so I couldn’t turn them down. I wanted to try some local eggnog. The bacon will be in the freezer for as needed in recipes. The spinach pasta was dinner tonight. I can’t remember the individual prices, but our total was $28.

I’m excited for the holidays this week and hope to enjoy cooking a few meals at home. Eating out really does get old, but sometimes it’s definitely the easy way out.

Older Entries Newer Entries

November 2024
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« May
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30